Willows in Spring Floodwater (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in.) SOLD

April 8 on Cataract Road, just north of Seburn Rd, a claywater creek flows bankfull among huge willow treees in a valley of green grass and Ash trees, Sumac, and grapevines, north of Fonthill near St.Catharines, Ontario.

The eastward, downstream side tof he creek is straight, and the Willow trees that stand with their roots in it are dark and gothic looking, their blackness in contrast with the milky tan, clay-filled water. On the upstream side the creek is shallower, winding between tongues of bright spring grass.  I clamber down the steep bank on that side, Teasel with old burrs spaced so that I can pass between them, still snagging my skirt on red, prickly arching raspberry canes.  I photograph the willows from all angles, getting my shoes muddy on the new-grassed floodflats.

A Muskrat like a diving beetle, flagellum-propelled on the surface, swims on the opaque water into the culvert but doesn't emerge from the upstream side.  The sun peeks out from the clouds that have greyed the sky all day and emblasons the new-leafed tips sof the Willows that rise high out of the creek bottom.


I collect Succinea snails from the traprock and drifted grasses by the big cement culvert that the creek runs through. Collected some drifted grass & sticks from the ne bank by the cement culvert -  mostly inhabited by Succinea, Deroceras laeve, with a few empty Cepaea shells, immature.  Also found one live one on higher drift.  A wet paper bag is favored by hundreds of glossy dark brown and blue-black millipedes, some curled into a double coil, some young ones in a mass, and some curled nto a double coil.
Leaving at 19:30, 10.5C, F2BRZ